I started my love affair with LOTR after I saw the movies for the first time when I was 13. Since then I've read The Hobbit, The LOTR Trilogy, The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales, The Lost Tales, and Children of Húrin. They definitely hold a special place in my heart !!

I've read the Lord of the Rings twice, the Hobbit just once (I do not personally like that book but it's readable), Silmarillion five times (my favorite, loved every single chapter of that book), Children of Húrin twice and then all of the History of Middle-earth books.

I can't remember at what age I was when I first came in contact with Lord of the Rings, but I was pretty young, though I remember Gollum/Sméagol scared the hell out of me back then, that's all I remember haha.

Later on in my life I found out about the Silmarillion and became obsessed with it and I'm still

Tolkien was a master of written word. His works created an entire world out of nothing but paper and anyone who has read the books wants to go there. I would suggest to anyone to read the books before the movies just for the chance to see middle-earth in their own mind. (also worth looking at is the LOTRO game. It touches on so much that they could't in the movies)

I think I've read just about everything -- Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion, Tolkien's letters, all the supplemental stuff that Christopher Tolkien pulled together, plus a great deal of the academic work on Tolkien. My PhD advisor is a Tolkien nut, so we trade sources and he tries to find me funding to go to academic Tolkien conferences, which is awesome.

In all honesty I have never read the Lord of the Rings series, only the one called The Hobbit... however I do have my brother's old books since they were supposed to go back with him last time he was here, and I don't see why I shouldn't read them.

"He's not out of the Shire yet. It's been seventeen years. Seventeen years."

"Shhh honey just wait til you get to the Council of Elrond"

But honestly my favorite part of the books is just immersing myself in the universe - reading the Silmarillion, the Book of Lost Tales, all that good stuff. The movies are a story, the books are a world.

I've read the Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit. I enjoy the books because Tolkien's writing is so beautifully descriptive that I can immerse myself into the world of Middle Earth and go along with the journeys of Bilbo and the dwarves or the Fellowship of the Ring. smile

I started reading Tolkien when I was 9. Found The Hobbit in this little hole in the wall used bookstore and couldn't put it down. After that I tried to find every single thing Tolkien ever wrote and read it. Started comparing every fantasy fiction I read to Tolkien....most fell short.